jargonking

Aside from the two monitors on the dash and a couple of panels on the centre console the interior was looking a little bare so I dressed it up a little with some spare etch.... I'm not planning on lighting this kit as I'm looking for a quick build....

Thought I'd tackle this one pretty much straight from the box with some minor additions and tweaks.... So first a breakdown of the parts.... Boxart... Bodyshell has sprue struts that require careful removal from the windows... Floorpan is in one piece... Bumpers, cladding and mirrors...these all need painting black... Interior parts... Chrome sprue...much of this I'm going to de-chrome and paint... Some great detail on the parts.... Roof parts.... Roof lightbar....all chrome although the frame should be black.... Roof light lenses.... Wheels and axles... Decals.... Tyres... I started by carefully removing the sprue from the bodyshell.... I also chose the parts I wanted to remain chrome.... ...the rest were dunked in some household bleach to remove the chrome.... The rear engine bulkhead was attached, parts fit is excellent... The dashboard assembly is just three parts.... Dashboard assembly and engine compartment test fitted to floorpan... Underside of floorpan features some nice detail... There are some minor ejector marks to fill on the rear bulkhead in the cabin... I also hollowed out the end of engine part C21... The rear bumper parts are in two pieces which Fujimi tell you to attach separately to the bodywork. This would leave a seam on the corner and also I intend to paint these prior to fixing. I therefore cemented them together... ...by removing the location pins (circled) from the rear part, the bumper assembly can be slid on from each side...

It depends on your luck....the sedan got hit, first time in about fifteen orders....the police car came through unscathed.

Here are some pics of the Police version that arrived on the tail of Deckard's car.... The boxart is superb.... Decals are Cartograf as before but a larger sheet... Wheels are subtley different from the Deckard version... The main physical difference is the roof lights... The assembly instructions are entirely in Japanese so it's important not to miss this step to drill out the holes for the roof lights.... Roof lights are moulded in separate colours with chrome bases... I suppose the two versions could have been combined as one kit but I guess doing separate ones is better for Fujimi's sales.... I've seen them advertised by some UK traders but at silly prices....your best bet is direct from Japan, ordering from HLJ is pretty painless.

At last some sensible prices! Hopefully the Cylon kits will follow in due course....

Fresh in from Japan here's the latest Blade Runner vehicle from Fujimi.... Bodyshell is perfectly moulded and the kit features lots of separate panels to apply to the basic shell making masking and painting of dissimilar colours easier... The front end features some really fine detail.... The car is rear engined and features a lot of detail in that area....bright chrome and vinyl tubing are included for this.... Wheels are in satin chrome with vinyl tyres and metal axles... Decals are perfectly printed by Cartograf and feature internal monitors and barcode license plate... Oddly the etched fret from the Spinner kit is included but there are no references to it in the instructions... As a bonus the first run of kits includes Deckard's blaster to around 1/4 scale. It might have been nice to have this in 1/24 too... The Police version is due here any day now. All that's really needed now are some decent figures from the aftermarket....

The high prices are due to the sole distributor Amerang's mark up policy which seems to entail doubling the dollar retail price of the kits then adding VAT. Given that Amerang also own Modelzone then the result is vastly inflated prices and poorer sales for Moebius in the UK market. The same situation goes for Pegasus kits. All my US friends are astonished by what we have to pay here and I find it far cheaper to order direct from the states. Hopefully the deal with Revell might restore some sanity.

Also I found it easier to assemble the whole rear nacelle assembly first then attach the wings and tailfin. I only attached the forward fuselage and engines at the very end. To do it this way you will need to modify the tabs on the wings and fin but it makes for a cleaner assembly.

I think your best bet is to remove it with a razor saw, cement it together and clean up then re-attach. Here's my Facebook album of my build which has some assembly shots which might be useful... http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/med...6013&type=1

Here's a link to my build... http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/med...6013&type=1 It's not the greatest kit ever released but builds into a reasonable replica. Regularly fetches up to £80 on eBay....the moulds must be somewhere, I think it's ripe for a repop

Two large envelopes arrived this morning.... Revell have come up with the goods with not one but two sets of replacement decals....fantastic customer service in fixing a problem that wasn't their fault in the first place... Now, where was I.......

Absolutely stunning Jorgen

Just arrived from across the pond.... I was surprised that the box is actually slightly smaller than the TV version and is also an end-opening type with a slide out inner box... The instruction sheet features full-length colour views... And an A4 size version of the boxart suitable for framing...

Added the base...

Here's my take on the Moebius Black Widow... A pretty easy build with no major issues. I reshaped the left foot slightly as it appears she has been given two right feet by the sculptor....the bootstraps are in the correct place but the foot definitely looks like it's pointing in the wrong direction.... The face sculpt is pretty good although I think my painting makes her look more like Susan Sarandon than Scarlett Johansson. My only critisism would be the lack of a name plate for the base and the lack of any Avengers decals for the shoulder patches. This first one was taken with a flash which has washed out the hair a little and makes everything appear too shiny although it does highlight the drybrushing on the tunic.... The rest were taken without flash....I'll get some better ones when I've finished painting the base....

I can definitely recommend the Poundland splatter guards....the mesh will also do for the stone guards on the headlights. I must say, given the price of the Bentley reissue, I'm amazed that Airfix have made no attempt to upgrade the kit with some photoetch.

Well the good news is I've had the offer of some replacement seat decals from another builder if Revell don't come up with the goods. My first thought is that the matt varnish has reacted with whatever lacquer is put on the decals at the factory. The can of varnish was shaken for well over two minutes and was applied in a warm dry atmosphere. I've come across instances of clear finishes 'blooming' due to moisture before in the years I spent as a cabinetmaker but I don't see that was what happened here. This isn't the first time I've had problems with Humbrol products in recent years. They always used to be the gold standard as far as quality was concerned but since they farmed out production overseas the quality has been variable to say the least. I've had various matt colours recently that take anything up to two days to dry. I also had two tins of matt black that were 98% thinners. I've not had much in the way of apologies from Humbrol aside from the usual automated messages. I've emailed them again over this latest episode so we'll see how far I get this time.

Disaster strikes....with my airbrush out of action I resorted to buying a spray can of Humbrol Matt Varnish to kill the shine on the seats....BIG MISTAKE! The seat on the right is before the varnish, the seat on the left is after. As you can see it has dried to leave white patches all over...and this affects over half of my seats! Close up of the damage....the white residue was invisible while the seats were wet. I've tried lightly buffing the spots to no effect. I've now had to contact Revell to see if I can get a replacement decal sheet. In the meantime I'm going to be contacting Humbrol for an explanation.

A coat of red paint on the upgraded radiator... the silver trim is next... A forest of seat frames after spraying with Plastikote Chrome...I was going to use Alclad but my compressor is playing up. The Plastikote is a good second best and, in some ways, probably gives a better scale appearance. Tomorrow I'll be painting all except the top sections Crimson.

For years I've used an Olfa P-Cutter. It's designed to score the plastic with a very fine v-groove...just score a few times and snap off the excess...it's also excellent for adding panel lines... http://www.greatart.co.uk/OLFAP-450CUTTER-cutters.htm

Time to bite the bullet and cut out the radiator....I used a marker pen to run around the edge of the aperture as I wanted to leave a slight lip to prevent the radiator frame falling through the gap... I chain drilled holes and then ran a blade between them... The cleaned up hole...I ended up just leaving a lip top and bottom... The mesh came from a frying pan splatter guard that cost me a pound for two! It's probably not quite fine enough but it's the best I've been able to find... Mesh superglued in place...I may add some spots of epoxy to it to prevent it possibly detaching in the future...

Fantastic work Jorgen. I couldn't agree with you more on the seat construction, it'll be a while before I tackle another one of these!

One product I use a lot of nowadays is this oil colour from Mig Productions. I always used to mix my own washes from various oil colours but this one, Starship Filth, is a ready made one ideal for dirtying down engines, wheels and any other area that takes a bit of a hammering. A small amount mixed with some odourless turpentine into a thin wash works a treat. The wheels had several coats of Citroen Venetian Red a few weeks ago. Last night I applied a thin wash of the Starship Filth colour and left it to dry overnight. The tyres are far too shiny straight out of the box. The one on the right here has been given a good rub over with some fine steel wool which gives a nice used look....I may add some subtle staining and weathering later on using powdered pigments. The rear wheels with the tyres on....after the wash was dry (and before fitting the tyres) the wheels were drybrushed, first with Revell 331 Satin Crimson, then Humbrol 60 Matt Red and finally a very light touch of Humbrol 132 Orange. The valves were picked out in Matt Black then tiny amounts of Dark Grey were applied randomly to exposed edges to simulate chipping. All that's left to do now is apply some matt varnish and they're done....

Finally got round to cleaning up the seat frames. It took me over three hours and is possibly the most tedious part of the build. There are a lot of sprue attachment points to remove followed by mould separation lines around the entire frame. I find the best solution for seam removal is first a scrape with a well-used almost blunt blade...too sharp and you run the risk of removing too much plastic. I follow this by polishing the entire frame using very fine (0000 grade) steel wool....this removes any flat spots or slight burrs left by the blade. You need to take care doing this as too much pressure will break the frame...I only had one do this, easily fixed with some liquid cement. Just got all the handrails to do now then ready for some more painting.

Not sure about the frames but there is a spare seat in every kit if built as per instructions...once I finish mine I'll happily send you the spare....get a few more to do that and you'll have a set!